


Every Twenty Minutes

by LadyM_17



Series: Whumptober 2020 [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ms. Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Sam Wilson, Awesome Wanda Maximoff, Fangirl Kamala Khan, Islamophobia, The Raft Prison (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyM_17/pseuds/LadyM_17
Summary: When Kamala went out for patrol, she didn't think she wouldn't return home. Months later, she's still in the Raft when she gets a new cellmate: Scarlet Witch.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Steve Rogers, Kamala Khan & Clint Barton, Kamala Khan & Sam Wilson, Kamala Khan & Scott Lang, Kamala Khan & Steve Rogers, Kamala Khan & Wanda Maximoff, Scott Lang & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff & Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff & Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff & Steve Rogers
Series: Whumptober 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948384
Comments: 20
Kudos: 33
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Every Twenty Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> My first Kamala Khan fic! I'm so excited for the Disney+ series and very excited to see Iman Vellani in it. Just excitement, happy squeals all around. 
> 
> Prompt: Day 5: Where Do You Think You're Going? [Rescue]
> 
> Content Warnings: Kidnapping, Islamophobia, Electric Shocks, Restraining  
> If there's anything else you think needs to be warned for, please let me know. Take care of yourselves, please.

When Kamala had gone out on the streets that winter night, she didn’t think she wouldn’t return home, but instead be ambushed by military officers and tossed into the back of a truck so fast she wouldn't even have time to call Bruno.

Fast forward through the first few days of interrogation where she kept being told that this was all procedure, that it would be over soon, that she would get to go home soon, that her parents had been told where she was, that everything was okay.

Then she asked for a lawyer as they dug deeper and deeper, asking about her mosque, ties to terrorism, asking if she was a biological weapon of so and so group in the Middle East, questions she’d heard in taunts but never seriously.

Then she was informed in no uncertain terms she didn’t have those rights, not anymore, she wasn’t considered a person anymore.

No phone calls, no constitutional rights, just interrogation, days and days of it before she met General Ross. He almost tried to be charming, friendly, but Kamala was so tired she didn’t believe him, snapping at him at every opportunity until they finally threw her in The Raft.

They had studied her fights and knew electricity disabled her. Kamala thought the first shock from the collar had been a warning when she’d been tossed into a cell, restrained by a straitjacket. Then twenty minutes later, it came again, and again, and then she understood. This wasn’t a punishment for something she had done, it wasn’t a warning, it was a precaution, they were disabling her powers to shift, to embiggen, to heal. She hadn’t even planned to use them, not in this military base where everyone was heavily armed… she was in a military base… in the middle of nowhere… God knows where her parents thought she was… if they even knew she was alive…what was she going to do?

The answer to that, apparently, was nothing, no resistance, no fight, Kamala just sat there, for days, based on when meals came, in the harsh light and waited.

Most of the time she thought about Jersey City, about afternoons with Bruno and Nakia at the Circle Q, about coming home to Lockjaw and her family. She wondered if Lockjaw was still with them, or if he had gone back with Queen Medusa. Maybe she knew where Kamala was, maybe she’d come to save her!…

That hope would last all of two seconds before remembering that if the other Inhumans were going to come and save her they would’ve done it when she was being interrogated in America, not when she was… well, wherever she was now.

So she let her mind float away before the breaking of hope broke her, chasing Aamir around the living room, exchanging notes with Nakia during youth lectures at the mosque, going to hug Abu when he came home from work, doing homework while Ammi cooked… Ammi had always hummed one song or another while cooking. Trapped in the silence here, Kamala would hum them too, random parts that she remembered, whisper random sentences she remembered hearing back home: pieces of advice, jokes, scraps of prayer. It felt like a warm blanket, before the shock jerked her back into her reality, her reality of cold endless silence filled only by her singing to herself, talking to herself… maybe she was going crazy, but she would only descend into madness faster in the silence of reality.

Then she got a cellmate. The guards dragged the young woman spitting and kicking before depositing her into the cell diagonal from Kamala’s.

“You’re Scarlet Witch!” Kamala gasped. “I saw you on the footage from the Battle of Sokovia!” _I’ve written fanfic about you_ , was probably not something the woman needed to know.

Scarlet Witch looked taken aback by Kamala’s excitement, but more than Scarlet Witch being an amazing hero, she was also another person in this nightmare, a real person, on her side, and endlessly more capable than Kamala. “Wanda Maximoff.”

“Kamala Khan!”

“Kamala…” it had been so long since she had heard another person’s voice, let alone one saying her name even remotely kindly, Kamala almost cried. “What’re you doing here?”

Kamala shrugged, well as much as the straitjacket, would allow her to. “I’m… not sure, they kinda just pulled me off the streets while I was patrolling and well… eventually I ended up here.” It had been... a long time, and no one had ever told her why. They called her dangerous, a terrorist, a threat, but she hadn't done anything! Or, at least she didn't think she'd done anything. Again, no one had told her if she had. Kamala swallowed voice was raspy from disuse, but having a conversation… it was wonderful, and as all good things went they had to come to an end.

“No talking!” A voice barked and Wanda’s shock collar went off. Wanda hissed in pain and glared at the camera.

“Don’t worry,” Kamala whispered, “You’ll get used to it.” And she was right, you did get used to it, when Kamala’s collar went off a few minutes later she barely flinched.

It took Wanda a little while to realize that Kamala was not doing something wrong to get shocked, she just was getting shocked, every now and then the collar would go off for the girl, for Wanda, it only went off when she pissed them off.

The girl was so young to be in here, but she guided Wanda around, anyways.

“Once a day,” she said when the guards brought them food.

“Three times.” When they were taken out to relieve themselves.

“Sleep whenever, the lights stay on. It’s a good escape.” The girl seemed to escape a lot, murmuring in her dreams, sometimes in a language that Wanda didn’t understand. When she was awake, staring off into the distance, before saying something random.

“You stand at a crossroads.”

“It all circles around.”

“It’s a special name… Our little miracle.”*

Wanda didn’t think the words were meant for her, but other times they were.

“I miss the sunlight.”

“It’s every twenty minutes.”

“I call the guard who brings us food Fredrick. He won’t tell me his real name, but he looks like a Fredrick.”

They didn’t shock the girl for speaking, and while Wanda wished it was an act of kindness, she suspected that in fact they just couldn’t remotely shock Kamala while also shocking her every twenty minutes.

Sometimes Kamala sang. Little snippets of song phrases, sometimes just humming notes. Her voice was dry and dull, dying from the electricity being rushed through her body so often, but she looked so far away when she was doing it, Wanda never asked her to stop when Kamala asked if she was bothering her.

Then Steve came.

Kamala had been awake, far away, hovering around Circle Q when Wanda bolted awake. “Something’s happening.” She was grinning, it was a good something.

Then four men burst into the room and Wanda laughed, Kamala had never heard her laugh before. “Good to see your faces again.”

One of the men shook his head, inspecting how Wanda was being held. “They really did a number on you kid.”

“Then hurry up and get me out of here.”

Wanda, they were here for Wanda, of course. Maybe they would take Kamala with them too? But maybe they wouldn’t want a kid with them, but they couldn’t leave her here! Maybe if they just let her go she could figure it out on her own.

In the time Kamala had been thinking, Wanda was free, letting red whips free from her fingers, breathlessly laughing.

“Kid?” One of the men had noticed her.

Kamala squinted at him wondering where she had seen him… “Captain America?”

The men laughed, three of them were in prison uniforms, everyone but the Captain, they were probably exhilarated at being out. Kamala missed being out. “The one and only.”

One of the men clapped the Captain on the back, he looked familiar…

“Ack!” Distracted by the first actual human interaction she’d seen in ages, Kamala had not been expecting that shock.

Immediately the men were weary.

“I thought you said you had taken them out, Cap?”

“I thought I did.”

Wanda was the one who had acted, ripping Kamala’s cell’s door off its hinges. “It’s a timer, every twenty minutes.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Wanda approached Kamala slowly and knelt next to her. “Kamala, can I see your neck?”

Kamala exposed the collar for Wanda to look at. “Clint, you’re handier at this than I am, come look.”

The man, Clint, approached, as slow as Wanda, following her lead. “I won’t hurt you kid.”

“I know,” Kamala said, figuring out where she knew him from. “You’re Hawkeye.”

Hawkeye laughed. “Never been recognized that quick before.”

Kamala shrugged.

“How long have you been here?” One of the men asked. Kamala didn’t recognize him.

“I… don’t know.”

“Do you know what the date was when you left?” The other suggested… Kamala recognized him too.

“Falcon.”

“Good eye, kid.” Falcon looked pleased.

“Oh, do me! Do me next!” The last man jumped up and down.

Kamala blushed. “I’m sorry… I don’t-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Falcon said, “That’s just Scott.”

“Also Ant-Man!” Scott huffed.

“Oh! The one from San Francisco!” Kamala remembered reading about him a while back.

“Yeah!”

“And got it!” The collar fell off and there was a collective inhale. Kamala’s neck was marred with electric burns and as Kamala moved her neck she felt them sting. How far away in her own head had she been that she hadn’t noticed them before?

“Fuck Ross,” someone muttered and there was a noise of agreement.

“The general?” Kamala asked.

“You’ve met him?” the Captain asked.

Kamala nodded and then regretted that movement. “Yeah, he interrogated me when they first took me.”

“And when was that, kid?” Hawkeye asked.

“Um… late February I think.”

“Steve, what’s the date today?”

“Almost June.”

“Oh God, I’ve been gone for three months? My parents-”

“Hey,” Hawkeye snapped in front of Kamala’s face, as Wanda started unfastening her straitjacket. “We’re going to figure all that out okay? But for now let’s get out of here, okay?”

“Okay.” Kamala did not plan on nodding again.

They followed the Captain out through the winding halls, up to where he said the ‘Quinnjet’ was located. Kamala was stuck between absolute terror at what was happening and absolute awe because these were AVENGERS. It was a lot of emotion after the past months and all she really wanted to do was go home and curl up on the couch as Ammi ran her fingers through Kamala’s hair like she did when Kamala was a little girl.

Wanda stayed close to Kamala and Kamala appreciated it. She’d grown slightly less awestruck by the woman as the time they spent stretched. Even though Wanda hadn’t been able to speak a lot, she’d always seemed kind.

“Going somewhere?”

The group whirled around to see General Ross sneering at them.

“Ross.” The Captain spat.

“Captain, need I remind you that you are a wanted criminal releasing other criminals, this won’t bode well for your friend Barnes getting a pardon.” The Captain was a wanted criminal? Then again, by Ross’ standards Kamala believed she was a criminal and, well, she didn’t think she was. Really this was all quite confusing and she wished, not for the first time, that General Ross would be straightforward with the charges. 

“Bucky’s innocent.”

“Try convincing the American public of that when you’re seen escaping with a known murderer and a terrorist.” 

Hawkeye made a low growling noise and Wanda clenched her fists.

“Bucky wouldn’t want his freedom coming at the cost of children’s.”

“Even when one of the children would’ve been his enemy if he had enlisted now instead of World War II?”

“One, Bucky’s fight was with Nazis, not German citizens, not German children, and certainly not German children living in the United States. Secondly, where’s your family from, kid?”

It took Kamala a second to catch up with what was happening. There was so much talking. People were talking to _her_. “Pakistan.”

“Last I checked we’re not at war with Pakistan, Sam?”

“No, you’re all caught up there Steve, not at war with them, and even if we were, we aren’t at war with their fucking children.”

General Ross opened his mouth to say something, probably just as offensive as all his previous remarks, but instead, he passed out.

Wanda’s eyes returned to their normal brown from glowing red. “I was getting sick of hearing him talk.”

“Good call. Let’s get out of here.” Steve turned to continue out, but Kamala hesitated.

“Kid?” Hawkeye asked, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Will your friend really be in trouble if you’re seen freeing me?” Kamala asked. As much as she wanted to be free, she didn’t want the Captain’s friend to get in trouble.

Steve shook his head. “Nah, Ross just wanted to get into our heads, Bucky’s safe.”

“Safe?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, Bucky’s safe, now let’s get out of here and then we can all be safe.”

And the group continued on to freedom, Kamala following behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't be mean please; have a wonderful day! 
> 
> *the things Kamala says here are all quotes from the comics


End file.
